Tango

Argentine Tango: A Brief History

by Susan August Brown

The exact origins of tango—both the dance and the word itself—are lost in myth and an
unrecorded history. The generally accepted theory is that in the mid-1800s, African slaves
were brought to Argentina and began to influence the local culture. The word "tango" may
be straightforwardly African in origin, meaning "closed place" or "reserved ground." Or it
may derive from Portuguese (and from the Latin verb tanguere, to touch) and was picked up
by Africans on the slave ships. Whatever its origin, the word "tango" acquired the standard
meaning of the place where African slaves and free blacks gathered to dance.

Argentina was undergoing a massive immigration during the later part of the 1800s and
early 1900s. In 1869, Buenos Aires had a population of 180,000. By 1914, its population
was 1.5 million. The intermixing of African, Spanish, Italian, British, Polish, Russian and
native-born Argentines resulted in a melting pot of cultures, and each borrowed dance and
music from one another. Traditional polkas, waltzes and mazurkas were mixed with the
popular habanera from Cuba and the candombe rhythms from Africa.

Most immigrants were single men hoping to earn their fortunes in this newly expanding
country. They were typically poor and desperate, hoping to make enough money to return to
Europe or bring their families to Argentina. The evolution of tango reflects their profound
sense of loss and longing for the people and places they left behind.

Most likely the tango was born in African-Argentine dance venues attended by
compadritos, young men, mostly native born and poor, who liked to dress in slouch hats,
loosely tied neckerchiefs and high-heeled boots with knives tucked casually into their
belts. The compadritos took the tango back to the Corrales Viejos—the slaughterhouse
district of Buenos Aires—and introduced it in various low-life establishments where
dancing took place: bars, dance halls and brothels. It was here that the African rhythms met
the Argentine milonga music (a fast-paced polka) and soon new steps were invented and
took hold.

Although high society looked down upon the activities in the barrios, well-heeled sons of
porteño oligarchy were not averse to slumming. Eventually,everyone found out about the
tango and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the tango as both a dance and as an
embryonic form of popular music had established firm foothold in the fast-expanding city
of its birth. It soon spread to provincial towns of Argentina and across the River Plate to
Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, where it became as much a part of the urban culture
as in Buenos Aires.

The worldwide spread of the tango came in the early 1900s when wealthy sons of
Argentine society families made their way to Paris and introduced the tango into a society
eager for innovation and not entirely averse to the risqué nature of the dance or dancing
with young, wealthy Latin men. By 1913, the tango had become an international
phenomenon in Paris, London and New York. There were tango teas, tango train
excursions and even tango colors—most notably orange. The Argentine elite who had
shunned the tango were now forced into accepting it with national pride.

The tango spread worldwide throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
The dance appeared in movies and tango singers traveled the world.
By the 1930s, the Golden Age of Argentina was beginning.
The country became one of the ten richest nations in the world and
music, poetry and culture flourished. The tango came to be a fundamental expression of
Argentine culture, and the Golden Age lasted through the 1940s and 1950s.

Tango's fortunes have always been tied to economic conditions and this was very true in
the 1950s. During this time, as political repression developed, lyrics reflected political
feelings until they started to be banned as subversive. The dance and its music went
underground as large dance venues were closed and large gatherings in general were
prohibited. The tango survived in smaller, unpublicized venues and in the hearts of the
people.

The necessity of going underground combined with the eventual invasion of rock and roll
sent the tango into decline until the mid-1980s when the stage show Tango Argentino
opened in Paris. Once again Paris was ground zero for igniting tango excitement
worldwide. The show toured the world and stimulated a revival in Europe, North America
and Japan that we are part of today.